Chehel Asrar 39 - Thirty Ninth Ghazal

Ghazal 39

9 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 477–478

تُو کانِ گَوْهَرِ کافی و کانِ گَوْهَرِ نُونی

to kān-e gowhar-e kāf-ī o kān-e gowhar-e nūn-ī

1a  You are the mine of kāf’s jewel and the mine of nūn’s jewel; [1]

چِه کاف و نُون کِه هَم اَز کاف و نُون تُو اَفْزُونی

che kāf o nūn ke ham az kāf o nūn to afzūn-ī

1b  what are kāf and nūn? You surpass even kāf and nūn.

Commentary on couplet 1

The speaker addresses a “you” whose worth exceeds even the jewels contained within it. Kāf and nūn spell kun, the creative command identified in the supplied note; Qurʾan 36:82 places that command within God’s willing and bringing a thing into being. [3] The mine image makes the letters precious while distinguishing them from the abundance that holds them. The second half then questions whether those letters can adequately measure the addressee. Read alongside the later summons to return inward, this may praise a spiritual capacity whose significance exceeds verbal signs. The identity of “you” remains open: the verse’s exaltation does not by itself establish a human source of God’s creative power.

مُحِیطِ گُنْبَدِ دَوّار را تُویی مَرْکَز

mohīt-e gonbad-e davvār rā toyī markaz

2a  You are the center of the revolving dome’s circumference;

صَفایِ صُفِّه‌ی اَسْرار را تُو اُستُونی

safā-ye soffe-ye asrār rā to ostūn-ī

2b  you are the pillar of the splendor of the hall of mysteries.

Commentary on couplet 2

The addressee stands at the center of a turning cosmic dome and supports a luminous hall of mysteries. The two images join relation and stability: a circumference is understood through its center, while a hall depends upon its pillar. Their architectural grandeur makes inward significance appear larger than outward position. An illuminating Akbarian comparison occurs in Qūnawī’s Miftāḥ al-ghayb, where the perfected human is addressed as the center around which things circulate, with human reality figured as a comprehensive mirror. [4] This is a documented comparison, not evidence of direct borrowing. Within the ghazal, the next couplet complicates the praise by asking this same “you” to return toward the center already attributed to it.

زِ دَوْرِ دایِرِه گَر سُویِ مَرْکَز آیی باز

ze dowr-e dāyere gar sū-ye markaz āyī bāz

3a  If you return from the circle’s circumference toward its center,

یَقِین بُوَد کِه زِ هَر وَصْف و وَهْم بِیرُونی

yaqīn bovad ke ze har vasf o vahm bīrūn-ī

3b  you will surely be beyond every description and imagining.

Commentary on couplet 3

The praised center becomes a destination: the addressee must return from the circumference before freedom from description and imagining is assured. Gar, “if,” makes the movement conditional, while bāz gives it the character of a return. This change from affirmation to summons suggests a distinction between inward dignity and its realization. Vasf and vahm concern descriptions and imaginative conceptions through which a person or thing is circumscribed. As an Akbarian comparison, Qūnawī links the center with freedom from limiting characteristics while still giving each attraction its due. [4] That parallel connects spiritual comprehensiveness with responsiveness. The poem itself leaves the means of return unstated; its geometry conveys the passage from peripheral dispersion toward an identity that familiar descriptions cannot exhaust.

سِپِهْرِ مَطْلَعِ اَنْوارِ آفتابِ جَلال

sepehr-e matlaʿ-e anvār-e āftāb-e jalāl

4a  The heaven where the rays of majesty’s sun arise

بِگِرْدِ نُقْطِهٔ ذاتِ تُو کَرْدِه گَرْدُونی

be-gerd-e noqte-ye zāt-e to karde gardūnī

4b  has revolved around the point of your essence.

Commentary on couplet 4

A heaven illuminated by the sun of majesty turns around the point of the addressee’s essence. The first half expands through heaven, radiance, and sunlight; the second gathers that magnificence around a point. This disproportion makes the smallest geometrical figure the focus of the largest visible order. Zāt, rendered “essence,” can designate the addressee’s essential reality; its occurrence alone does not settle whether the address is divine or directed toward an inward human reality. The preceding call to return remains relevant. The couplet renews the opening praise in a cosmological image, presenting centrality as something already true in the poem’s vision, even while recognition of that standing remains a task for its bewildered hearer.

ظُهُورِ سِرِّ کَمالاتِ سَرْمَدی اَز تُسْت

zohūr-e serr-e kamālāt-e sarmadī az tost

5a  The secret of eternal perfections is revealed through you,

اَگَرچِه خازِنِ اَسْرار را تُو مَخْزُونی

agarche khāzen-e asrār rā to makhzūn-ī

5b  although you are held in store by the keeper of mysteries.

Commentary on couplet 5

The addressee reveals the secret of eternal perfections while remaining concealed with the keeper of mysteries. Zohūr, manifestation or becoming apparent, meets makhzūn, something kept in store: the one through whom a secret appears is also a guarded secret. The unnamed keeper leaves the source of that custody unstated. “Through you” supports a reading of mediated disclosure, while “eternal” qualifies the perfections rather than explicitly declaring the addressed person uncreated. A relevant distinction appears in Hamadani’s prose, which places spiritually exalted lovers within contingent existence even when their condition exceeds ordinary understanding. [5] Here the paradox makes disclosure and concealment simultaneous. The addressee’s importance consists in bearing a mystery whose appearance does not make its bearer fully available to comprehension.

قِبابِ عِزَّت اَگَر پَرْدِهٔ جَمالِ تُو شُد

qebāb-e ʿezzat agar parde-ye jamāl-e to shod

6a  Though the domes of majesty have become the veil of your beauty,

تُوئی کِه دَر صَدَفِ عِلْم دُرِّ مَکْنُونی

toyī ke dar sadaf-e ʿelm dorr-e maknūn-ī

6b  you are the hidden pearl within the shell of knowledge.

Commentary on couplet 6

The domes of majesty cover the addressee’s beauty, and knowledge becomes a shell containing a hidden pearl. These paired coverings give concealment an affirmative value: splendor can veil, and knowledge can preserve something that remains inward. The poem does not simply oppose ignorance to disclosure. Even within knowledge, the pearl retains a privacy that possession of the shell cannot cancel. Jamāl, beauty, is therefore encountered through a surrounding dignity rather than exposed without mediation. The jewel also recalls the opening mine, but its setting has narrowed from an abundant deposit to an intimate enclosure. This concentration makes the hidden object more precious while continuing the previous couplet’s claim that revelation and guardedness can belong together.

لِوایِ عِزِّ تُو بَر سِدْرِهٔ قِدَم زَدِه‌اَنْد

levā-ye ʿezz-e to bar sedre-ye qedam zadeʾand

7a  They have planted your banner of glory on the lote tree of eternity;

عَزِیزِ سِدْرِهٔ اَهْلِ صَفا نَه اَکْنُونی

ʿazīz-e sedre-ye ahl-e safā na aknūn-ī

7b  you have been dear to the lote tree of the pure-hearted since long before now. [2]

Commentary on couplet 7

The addressee’s banner has been raised upon a lote tree given the dignity of eternity, while the second half denies that this honor belongs only to the present. The tree recalls the Sidrat al-Muntahā of Qurʾan 53:14–16; the banner and “eternity” are the poem’s elaborations, not wording supplied by those verses. [6] The banner makes spiritual rank visible through a courtly emblem. Yet the relation among the tree, dearness, and the pure-hearted remains uncertain, as the supplied reading note acknowledges. Interpretation should therefore rest on the clearer contrast in na aknūnī, “not of now alone.” The couplet projects dignity beyond the immediate moment without establishing a precise chronology or proving the individual addressee’s uncreated existence.

دَفِینِ مَخْزَنِ لاهُوت را کِه کَوْن و مَکان

dafīn-e makhzan-e lāhūt rā ke kown o makān

8a  The buried treasure of divinity’s storehouse, which existence and space

نَداشْت طاقَتِ دِیدارِ آن تُو مَدْفُونی

nadāsht tāqat-e dīdār-e ān to madfūn-ī

8b  could not bear to behold—you are that hidden treasure.

Commentary on couplet 8

On the supplied translation, the sentence carries its treasure across the break between hemistichs, delaying its identification with “you” until the created order’s inability to behold it has been stated. Lāhūt names divinity here, while kown o makān evokes the cosmos of created existence and place. The storehouse and burial images intensify concealment into something beyond the world’s capacity to receive. Hamadani’s prose offers a relevant parallel: access to divine knowledge depends upon God’s grace, and earth and heaven cannot bear its burden unaided; the same discussion denies God’s spatial containment. [5] This helps distinguish spiritual receptivity from literal enclosure of God. The delayed “you” makes the cosmic inability to behold the treasure coincide with an unexpectedly intimate recognition.

عَلائِیا گَر اَز اِین حال حَیْرَتَسْت تُرا

ʿAlāʾiyā gar az īn hāl hayrat ast torā

9a  O ʿAlāʾī, if this state leaves you bewildered,

اُمِید قَطْع مَکُن چُون بِوَقْت مَرْهُونی

omīd qatʿ makon chūn be-vaqt marhūn-ī

9b  do not give up hope, for you are bound to the appointed time.

Commentary on couplet 9

The closing turns explicitly to ʿAlāʾī and answers bewilderment with a command to preserve hope. Hayrat names the perplexity provoked by a state that the preceding praises have made difficult to comprehend. Marhūn suggests being pledged, bound, or dependent; joined to waqt, time, it places fulfilment beyond the addressee’s immediate disposal. The supplied “appointed time” is an explanatory rendering, but the Persian specifies no date. Hamadani’s prose similarly presents spiritual gifts as beyond the seeker’s control while preserving the possibility of purification and hopeful readiness. [5] This is a parallel for the posture of waiting, not a promised schedule. The poem ends with a practical relation to mystery: the person addressed so grandly must still live through uncertainty without cutting off hope.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal praises an unnamed “you” through images of cosmic centrality and guarded treasure, then ends by addressing ʿAlāʾī in bewilderment. Its central question concerns the relation between a dignity proclaimed and a dignity understood. The addressee is already the center of the revolving dome, yet must return from the circumference toward that center. Such a tension supports a reading in which the poem speaks to an inward human reality or ideal spiritual capacity. It also prevents an automatic identification of every “you” with God. The address can remain mobile, allowing praise, inward summons, and self-address to illuminate one another without fixing a single referent throughout.

Two groups of images hold the poem together. Circles, a center, and a point make outward multiplicity depend upon an inward focus; a pillar gives that relation architectural strength. Mines, storehouses, domes, shells, and burial places describe a value that concealment preserves. These groups meet in the thought that what matters most need not be most exposed. The addressee can reveal eternal perfections while remaining hidden, just as a minute point can orient a vast turning heaven. The sequence offers related perspectives rather than a demonstrable itinerary through successive spiritual stations. Its metaphysical reach depends upon poetry’s ability to bring these different scales into contact.

Hamadani’s prose gives useful limits and affinities: exalted lovers remain contingent, divine knowledge requires grace, and spiritual gifts call for hopeful receptivity. [5] These documented parallels help interpret the human possibilities of the praise without authenticating the ghazal’s attribution. Qūnawī supplies a particularly close Akbarian comparison for the human center and its freedom from restrictive descriptions. [4] The comparison clarifies the geometrical language while leaving the poem’s own uncertainties intact. Likewise, the Qurʾanic command and lote tree supply recognizable contexts, but the poem extends them through jewels, a banner, and an eternity whose implications require care.

The closing changes the register from cosmic assertion to patient counsel. Bewilderment now has a named hearer, and time qualifies what the earlier images seemed to place beyond ordinary limits. Hope does not resolve the compressed lote-tree verse, uncover every treasure, or convert praise into an achieved spiritual state. It gives ʿAlāʾī a way to inhabit the distance between the significance announced to him and his ability to understand it. The hidden center remains a summons whose answer cannot be forced ahead of its time.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes

[1] 1a: Kāf and nūn spell the Arabic creative command kun, “Be!”; compare Qurʾan 36:82.

[2] 7b: The compressed relation of “dear,” “lote tree,” and “the pure-hearted” is uncertain; this is a provisional reading.

Editorial references

3. Qurʾan 36:82, the creative command kun. This verifies the scriptural context identified in supplied reading note [1]; the poem’s praise beyond the letters is its own formulation.
4. Qūnawī, passages from Miftāḥ al-ghayb and Iʿjāz al-bayān, translated in William C. Chittick, “The Central Point—Qūnawī’s Role in the School of Ibn ʿArabī”, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society 35 (2004), especially note 20 and the passage ending at note 21. Chittick’s translated passages were checked; the original editions he cites were not independently collated. These are comparative contexts, without a claim of direct influence.
5. Hamadani, Dhakhīrat al-mulūk, consulted in Mohammad Umar Farooq, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani’s Dhakiratul Muluk: An Annotation and Translation (PhD thesis, University of Kashmir, 2009), printed pp. 61–62, on divine knowledge and transcendence; p. 338, on lovers’ contingent existence; and p. 414, on spiritual gifts and readiness. The English translation was checked; the Persian wording was not independently collated.
6. Qurʾan 53:14–16, the Sidrat al-Muntahā, or lote tree of the utmost boundary. These verses provide a scriptural context for the tree; they do not contain the poem’s banner or designate the tree with its expression “of eternity.”

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991, printed p. 477–478 reference, the signature ʿAlāʾī, and both reading notes are retained unchanged. That edition and the attribution of this ghazal have not been independently verified. The commentary distinguishes the supplied reading from documented Hamadani parallels, scriptural contexts, and explicitly comparative Akbarian passages.

The leaf is a corrected text, and the printed edition follows the corrections

That is the headline. Four of the differences below are places where a corrector wrote above the line or in the margin, and in every one of them the printed text agrees with the correction rather than with what the copyist wrote. Our apparatus can now separate two things the printed text merges: words the copyist dropped and a later hand restored, and words the copyist wrote that a later hand wanted replaced.

Couplet 6a — main text نقاب, margin قباب

نقاب عزت او پردهٔ جمال تو شد

 neqāb-e ʿezzat-e u parde-ye jamāl-e to shod

 "the veil of his glory became the curtain of your beauty"

The dots are unambiguous at high magnification: one above the first letter, two above the second, giving نقاب. In the lower left margin stands قباب, with a small collation sign above it. Two differences ride together here, since the leaf also has او where the printed text has اگر — one syllable against two, so only one of them fits the line. With اگر the couplet is concessive; with او it simply states that one covering has become another. Our commentary on "paired coverings" and "domes of majesty" rests on the marginal reading, not on what this copyist wrote.

Couplet 7a — main text سدّه, corrected to سدره above the line

لوای عز تو بر سدّهٔ قدم زده‌اند

 levā-ye ʿezz-e to bar sodde-ye qedam zadeʾand

 "they have planted your banner of glory on the threshold of eternity"

A small سدره sits above the word, and a matching note stands in the right margin. Note what this means alongside the Ghazal 34 leaf, where a large سدره stood in the margin beside سدّهٔ in "سریر سدهٔ ایوان". The same substitution, twice, by what looks like the same hand. Someone working through this manuscript preferred the lote tree to the threshold wherever the skeleton allowed it, and the printed edition has inherited that preference in both places.

Couplet 7b — this resolves our reading note [2]

عزیزِ در صفِ اهلِ صفا نه اکنونی

 ʿazīz-e dar saff-e ahl-e safā na aknūnī

 "dear in the ranks of the people of purity, not of now alone"

The ص loop and the dotted ف are both clear. Against the printed عزیزِ سدرهٔ اهل صفا, which note [2] calls compressed and provisional, this is ordinary Persian: صف is idiomatic with اهل صفا and chimes with صفا in the same breath. The difficulty the note records simply disappears.

A hypothesis worth testing rather than asserting: a corrector pressing سدره in 7a had the second hemistich sitting directly beside it on the page, and سدره could migrate into the neighbouring line in a copy made from a leaf marked this way. That would account for the printed text of 7b without any need for a separate authority behind it.

Couplet 9a — two corrections restore the printed line

The copyist wrote علائی گر ازین حیرتست ترا. Above the line a corrector added علائیا, and in the right margin wrote حال with a collation mark. Both additions are needed for the line to carry its metre, so this is repair of an omission rather than a competing reading, and the printed 9a is the corrected state of this leaf.

Differences with no correction attached

Couplet 1a — the leaf reads تو کانِ گوهرِ کافی و گوهرِ نونی, with the second کانِ absent. The printed line gives each letter its own mine; the leaf gives one mine holding both jewels.

Couplet 1b — چه کاف و نون که از کاف و نون افزونی, without هم and without تو. The printed fuller line divides cleanly as che-kā-fo-nūn / ke-ha-maz-kā / fo-nūn-to-af / zū-nī, the same fourteen positions that couplet 3a fills exactly. The leaf's line falls two positions short, so this reads as a slip in this copy rather than a variant.

Couplet 3b — يقين شنو که ز هر وصف و وهم بيرونی

 yaqīn shenow ke ze har vasf o vahm bīrūnī

 "hear it as certain that you are beyond every description and imagining"

Against the printed یقین بود. The two words carry identical weight, so nothing shifts metrically, and that is exactly why such a substitution survives copying. The sense does shift: بود asserts, شنو commands. On the manuscript reading, both halves of the couplet address the hearer — gar…āyī bāz then shenow — which sharpens the turn from proclaimed dignity to summons that our commentary identifies in this couplet.

Couplets 2, 4, 5, 6b and 8 agree with our printed text throughout.

What stays uncertain

The right-margin note beside couplet 7 is small and cursive. It most plausibly repeats سدره, matching the supralinear addition in the line it faces, but I would not print it from this image. The collation signs above قباب and above حال are likewise legible as signs without being legible as particular words.

Chehel Asrar 38 - Thirty Eighth Ghazal

Ghazal 38

9 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 477

آن دِل کِه یافْت یِک دَم اَز کُویِ تُو نِشانی

ān del ke yāft yek dam az kū-ye to neshānī

1a  For the heart that found, one moment, a sign of your lane,

گَرْدَد نِثارِ راهَش دَر هَر نَفَس جَهانی

gardad nesār-e rāh-ash dar har nafas jahānī

1b  a whole world is scattered as an offering on its path with every breath.

Commentary on couplet 1

A heart that has found even a momentary sign of the beloved’s lane receives an offering of worlds with every breath. On the most natural reading, rāh-ash, “its path,” refers back to that heart: the world is offered along its way. The extravagant honor follows a trace of proximity, without any claim that the heart has reached complete union. Yek dam, one moment, opens into har nafas, every breath, making brief contact bear continuing fruit. Nisār suggests gifts scattered in homage and gives recognition a public, ceremonial scale. Yet the recipient is a heart, so the scene brings worldly magnificence into relation with inward receptivity. A slight sign changes the value of everything encountered afterward.

رُوحانِیانِ عُلْوی دَر رَشْک و حَسْرَت اُفْتَنْد

rūhāniyān-e ʿolvī dar rashk o hasrat oftand

2a  The spirits of the higher world fall into envy and longing

چُون بِیدِلی نِشِینَد با یادِ تُو زَمانی

chūn bīdelī neshīnad bā yād-e to zamānī

2b  when a heartsick lover sits remembering you for a while.

Commentary on couplet 2

The spirits above fall into envy and longing when a heartsick lover sits for a while remembering the beloved. The contrast joins exalted beings to a modest human posture: quiet recollection becomes an occasion they might wish to share. Bīdel, one who has lost the heart, makes apparent deprivation the condition of an enviable intimacy. Rūhāniyān-e ʿolvī names higher spirits without specifying an angelic order. Their response belongs to the poem’s imaginative praise of remembrance, rather than a demonstrated hierarchy of spiritual beings. Yād can hold both affectionate recollection and devotional remembrance. The short duration matters: even a while spent in this attention has a value that cannot be measured by the outward simplicity of sitting still.

با لَذَّتِ خَیالَت خُلْدِ بَرِین سَرابی

bā lazzat-e khayāl-at khold-e barīn sarābī

3a  Beside the pleasure of imagining you, highest paradise is a mirage;

با نامِ تُو دُو عالَم نان‌رِیزِه‌ای زِ خوانی

bā nām-e to do ʿālam nān-rīzeʾī ze khānī

3b  beside your name, both worlds are a crumb from a banquet.

Commentary on couplet 3

The pleasure of imagining the beloved makes highest paradise seem a mirage, while the beloved’s name reduces both worlds to a banquet crumb. These are comparisons of value: something usually treated as immense or desirable becomes slight beside a more absorbing attachment. Khayāl can mean an image or imagined presence, preserving intimacy even without immediate sight. Hamadani’s account of gratitude values the giver’s goodwill and nearness above possession of the gift. [2] That is a documented parallel for preference directed toward the beloved, without declaring paradise nonexistent. The banquet remains unspecified, and the name need not be a particular divine name. The couplet’s force lies in how an image and a word can outweigh the largest rewards the lover can imagine.

بَرْقِ شُعاعِ حُسْنَت هَر دِیدِه بَر نَتابَد

barq-e shoʿāʿ-e hosn-at har dīde bar natābad

4a  Not every eye can bear the lightning of your beauty’s radiance;

وَصْفِ غَمَت نَگَرْدَد مَقْدُورِ هَر زَبانی

vasf-e gham-at nagardad maqdūr-e har zabānī

4b  not every tongue can describe the sorrow of you.

Commentary on couplet 4

The lightning of beauty exceeds what every eye can bear, just as sorrow associated with the beloved exceeds what every tongue can describe. The two halves distinguish receiving an overwhelming appearance from finding words adequate to its effect. “Not every” is essential: the poem limits capacity without saying that all sight or speech must fail. Barq gives radiance the sudden force of lightning, while maqdūr brings description within the question of what a speaker can manage. The sorrow may be the pain of loving or separation; it need not name suffering experienced by the beloved. The verse itself attempts to speak at this limit, giving its declarations of beauty the pressure of something difficult to endure and express.

بُوئی زِ خاکِ کُویَت مَطْلُوبِ هَر ضَمِیری

būyī ze khāk-e kūy-at matlūb-e har zamīrī

5a  A fragrance from the dust of your lane is every heart’s desire;

عَکْسی زِ نُورِ رُویَت مَحْبُوبِ هَر رَوانی

ʿaksī ze nūr-e rūy-at mahbūb-e har ravānī

5b  a reflection of your face’s light is every soul’s beloved.

Commentary on couplet 5

A fragrance from the lane’s dust is desired by every heart, and a reflection of the face’s light is beloved to every soul. The paired matlūb and maḥbūb join what is sought with what is loved, while fragrance and reflection make the attraction available through traces. Even the humble dust carries that influence. The universal “every” contrasts with the preceding limits upon eyes and tongues: attraction need not mean equal ability to sustain an encounter or describe it. The claim is expansive, but it does not explain how each person recognizes the object of desire. Its language allows beauty to draw the heart before the heart can give a clear account of what draws it.

سَوْدایِ بِی‌دِلان را سُودی زِ وَصْل فَرْما

sowdā-ye bī-delān rā sūdī ze vasl farmā

6a  Grant the heartsick a profit of union from their passionate trade, [1]

چُون نِیسْت حَضْرَتَت را اَز سُودِ ما زِیانی

chūn nīst hazrat-at rā az sūd-e mā ziyānī

6b  since our profit brings no loss to your presence.

Commentary on couplet 6

The speaker asks that the lovers’ passionate business yield union, arguing that their gain would cost the beloved nothing. As the supplied note explains, sowdā brings passion and trade together; sūd and ziyān continue the language of profit and loss. Yet farmā, “grant,” keeps the appeal a petition whose answer belongs to the addressee. In a devotional context, the hadith qudsi reported by Abū Dharr describes divine giving to all humanity and jinn as undiminished by their requests. [3] This closely illuminates the absence of loss, without making the poem a quotation of that report. Union would enrich the lovers while leaving the beloved’s fullness intact. The argument seeks generosity through the language of exchange, although it offers no enforceable bargain.

اَز سُوزِ داغِ هِجْران دَر حَضْرَتَت چِگُویَم

az sūz-e dāgh-e hejrān dar hazrat-at chegūyam

7a  What can I say before you of separation’s burning brand,

چُون دَر حَرِیمِ عِلْمَت پَیْداسْت هَر نِهانی

chūn dar harīm-e ʿelm-at paydāst har nehānī

7b  when every hidden thing lies open in the sanctuary of your knowledge?

Commentary on couplet 7

The speaker asks what can be said about separation’s burning wound before one to whom every hidden thing is already open. The question does not end speech: uttering it becomes a way of presenting the pain without claiming to explain something unknown. Hamadani describes thoughts as heard by God before they leave the heart. [2] Qur’an 20:7 likewise places open speech beside divine knowledge of the secret and what is still more hidden. [4] This is a close scriptural context, rather than a direct quotation. Harīm, sanctuary, gives knowledge an image of intimacy and guarded access; it need not make knowledge a physical enclosure. The beloved’s complete awareness leaves room for petition as an act of relationship, even where information adds nothing.

مَه دَر نِقابِ غَیْرَت پِنْهان و خَلْقِ عالَم

mah dar neqāb-e ghayrat penhān o khalq-e ʿālam

8a  The moon is hidden behind the veil of jealous ardor, and the people of the world—

هَر کَس زِ سِرِّ حُسْنَت دَر پَرْدِهٔ گُمانی

har kas ze serr-e hosn-at dar parde-ye gomānī

8b  each is veiled in some conjecture about the secret of your beauty.

Commentary on couplet 8

The beloved appears as a moon concealed by jealous ardor, while each observer is covered by a conjecture about beauty’s secret. Two veils are distinguished: one belongs to the beloved’s guardedness, the other to the beholder’s limited understanding. Ghayrat suggests an exclusive claim that resists unrestricted access. Gomān is conjecture, so the second veil concerns the status of what people suppose they know. Hamadani’s prose calls the divine essence a mystery concealed from creatures. [2] This supplies a devotional parallel for knowledge that cannot become exhaustive possession. The verse does not distinguish the speaker as exempt from conjecture. After the preceding declaration that all is known to the beloved, the limits of those who look toward that beloved become especially clear.

سِرّی کِه صَد هِزاران سَر دَر غَمَش فُرو شُد

serrī ke sad hezārān sar dar gham-ash forū shod

9a  A secret for whose sorrow a hundred thousand heads have fallen—

کَی گَرْدَد ای عَلایی حاصِل زِ نِیم جانی

kay gardad ey ʿAlāʾī hāsel ze nīm jānī

9b  how could it be gained, O ʿAlāʾī, for half a life?

Commentary on couplet 9

The final question turns toward ʿAlāʾī: how could one small life obtain a secret for which a hundred thousand heads have fallen? The sound of serr, secret, beside sar, head, binds the desired mystery to its overwhelming human cost. Nīm jān, retained as “half a life,” can also mean an exhausted remnant of life, as Dehkhoda records. [5] The phrase may therefore expose the lover’s frailty rather than accuse him of insincere effort. The question tests the adequacy of what he can offer; its numbers are poetic measures, not a price list. Hamadani leaves spiritual gifts to divine will while assigning seekers inward preparation. [2] That context helps keep devotion from becoming a claim of purchase. The closing leaves the secret beyond the named lover’s command.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal places the immense value of remembering the beloved beside the limits of what remembrance can secure. A momentary sign of the lane transforms the heart’s standing; a quiet interval of recollection makes higher spirits envious; an image and a name outweigh paradise and both worlds. The addressee remains unnamed, and the sensuous language of face, fragrance, and moon sustains human affection alongside a devotional reading. The poem speaks expansively about attraction, but its opening contact is still only a sign. Such a trace can reorder the lover’s world without giving possession of beauty’s secret.

The movement between “every” and “not every” is central. Every heart desires a fragrance and every soul loves a reflection, yet not every eye can bear the radiance or every tongue describe its sorrow. Universal attraction coexists with unequal capacity and incomplete recognition. The later moon and veils make this distinction sharper: the beloved’s beauty is guarded, and beholders approach it through conjectures. Imagining the beloved can give profound pleasure without becoming a complete account of what the beloved is. The poem keeps those two possibilities in contact, allowing inward intimacy to coexist with limits of knowledge.

The language of profit brings the question of access into a direct petition. The lovers ask for union because their gain need not diminish the beloved; they then ask how to voice a wound already known. Hamadani’s prose provides parallels for preferring the giver, for divine knowledge of unspoken thoughts, and for creaturely limits before divine mystery. [2] These contexts support a devotional interpretation while preserving the poem’s particular images and shifts of voice. The appeal remains relational: speech expresses need, remembrance attends to the beloved, and desired benefit depends upon a response the lovers cannot require.

The closing self-address brings the earlier magnificence under the pressure of one vulnerable life. After worlds scattered in homage and celestial envy, ʿAlāʾī confronts the disparity between the secret and the scant life available to seek it. “Half a life” may name depletion, so the ending should retain its possibility of exhausted devotion as well as its severe question about adequacy. The poem does not cancel the value of the sign received at the beginning. It asks how that value can be immense while the beloved’s secret still exceeds what the lover can offer.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes

[1] 6a: Sowdā joins the senses of passion and trade, continued by “profit” and “loss.”

Editorial references

2. Hamadani, Dhakhīrat al-mulūk, consulted in Mohammad Umar Farooq, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani’s Dhakiratul Muluk: An Annotation and Translation (PhD thesis, University of Kashmir, 2009), printed p. 61, on unspoken thoughts and divine mystery; printed p. 331, on valuing the giver; and printed p. 414, on inward preparation and divine gifts. The English translation was checked; the Persian wording was not independently collated.
3. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2577a, Book 45, hadith 70, the hadith qudsi transmitted by Abū Dharr. The passage on granting the requests of humanity and jinn without diminishing divine resources provides a contextual parallel for couplet 6.
4. Qur’an, Ṭā-Hā 20:7, on open speech and divine knowledge of the secret and what is more hidden. Cited as a close context for couplet 7, without asserting direct quotation.
5. ʿAli-Akbar Dehkhoda, Lughat-nāma, entry “nīm jān”, available through Vajehyab. The entry gives the senses of a remnant of life and an exhausted or barely living person, with examples of lovers offering their remaining life. It supports the alternative nuance discussed in couplet 9.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991, printed p. 477 reference, the signature ʿAlāʾī, and the reading note are retained unchanged. That edition and the attribution of this ghazal have not been independently verified. The commentary preserves “half a life” while explaining a further lexical possibility, and distinguishes poetic claims from the documented contexts cited here.

Chehel Asrar 37 - Thirty Seventh Ghazal

Ghazal 37

7 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 476

صُبْحِ وَصْلَم دَمَد اَز مَشْرِقِ رُویَت رُوزی

sobh-e vasl-am damad az mashreq-e rūy-at rūzī

1a  One day the dawn of my union will rise from the east of your face;

شَبِ هِجْرَم شَوَد اَنْدَر سَرِ مُویَت رُوزی

shab-e hejr-am shavad andar sar-e mūy-at rūzī

1b  one day my night of separation will be lost in the tips of your hair.

Commentary on couplet 1

The speaker looks toward a future in which the beloved’s face becomes the eastern horizon of union and separation’s night enters the beloved’s hair. Rūzī, “one day,” leaves the moment unnamed while sustaining confidence that it can come. Dawn and dark hair make contrasting appearances part of the same beloved. The second half is compressed: “will be lost” is the supplied translation’s interpretation of the night’s movement into the tips of the hair. It suggests separation absorbed into proximity, without specifying a precise process of disappearance. The body remains present in these images of hoped-for intimacy. Their devotional possibilities arise through the language of union and separation, while the opening itself offers anticipation rather than a report of arrival.

نُورِ خُورْشِیدِ اُمِیدَم کِه فُرو شُد زِ غَمَت

nūr-e khorshīd-e omīd-am ke forū shod ze gham-at

2a  The sunlight of my hope, which set in sorrow for you,

هَم بَرآیَد زِ رَهِ مَطْلَعِ کُویَت رُوزی

ham barāyad ze rah-e matlaʿ-e kūy-at rūzī

2b  will rise again one day from the horizon of your lane.

Commentary on couplet 2

Hope’s sunlight has already set in sorrow associated with the beloved, yet the speaker expects it to rise again from the beloved’s lane. The completed forū shod, “set,” gives the promise a history of disappointment. Ham barāyad answers that setting with renewed ascent, so hope is imagined as recoverable even after its light has gone. The lane enlarges into a horizon: an ordinary place near the beloved acquires the power of an eastern sky. Both the grief and its possible reversal remain connected with the same addressee. The repeated “one day” gives the renewal a voice before it gives it a date. This is the lover’s sustained expectation, whose force comes partly from the darkness it acknowledges.

دِل کِه خُو کَرْدِهٔ لُطْف اَسْت بِخُون مِی‌گَرْدَد

del ke khū-karde-ye lotf ast be-khūn mī-gardad

3a  The heart, accustomed to kindness, is turning to blood,

تا کِه بُوئی رَسَدَش اَز گُلِ رُویَت رُوزی

tā ke būyī rasad-ash az gol-e rūy-at rūzī

3b  until one day a fragrance from the rose of your face reaches it.

Commentary on couplet 3

The heart knows kindness, but is presently turning to blood as it waits for a fragrance from the beloved’s face. That remembered gentleness makes the present anguish sharper and gives hope something to recall. Khū, habitual familiarity, is followed by khūn, blood, bringing the heart’s accustomed condition and its painful alteration into a close sound pattern. The rose makes the face a source of beauty whose influence may travel beyond immediate sight. Only a fragrance is sought, yet even that slight contact could answer the heart’s distress. In the supplied “until,” suffering remains open toward an anticipated ending. The verse does not make anguish the price that purchases kindness; the desired fragrance must still reach the waiting heart.

چَتْرِ اِقْبال بَر اَفْلاک رَسانَد بَخْتَم

chatr-e eqbāl bar aflāk rasānad bakht-am

4a  My fortune will raise the canopy of prosperity to the heavens,

گَر بِیابَد اَثَرِ مَیْل زِ سُویَت رُوزی

gar beyābad asar-e mayl ze sūy-at rūzī

4b  if one day it finds a sign of affection from you.

Commentary on couplet 4

The speaker’s fortune would raise a canopy as high as the heavens if it detected a sign of affection from the beloved. Chatr has a ceremonial sense: Dehkhoda records the canopy among the emblems of sovereignty. [1] Its height therefore magnifies the lover’s imagined dignity as well as his happiness. Bakht, fortune, acts in both halves, first lifting the canopy and then seeking the indication that would make this possible. The explicit gar, “if,” qualifies the grandeur. Mayl is an inclination toward someone; even its trace, asar, would suffice for an immense change in standing. The speaker seeks recognition that comes from the beloved, and the verse leaves that recognition unconfirmed beneath its royal promise.

تِشْنِگانِ طَلَبِ بادِیِهٔ هِجْران را

teshnegān-e talab-e bādiye-ye hejrān rā

5a  To those thirsty with seeking in the desert of separation,

شَرْبَتِ وَصْل رَسَد بَر لَبِ جُویَت رُوزی

sharbat-e vasl rasad bar lab-e jūy-at rūzī

5b  the drink of union will come one day beside your stream.

Commentary on couplet 5

The solitary lover’s hope opens outward to thirsty seekers crossing the desert of separation. Their thirst belongs to talab, seeking, while the promised refreshment belongs to union. Lab-e jūy, the bank or lip of a stream, gives their arrival a concrete edge where water becomes accessible. Hamadani’s prose closely pairs thirsty people in separation’s desert with the waters of union, reached through those close to God. [2] His passage includes spiritual guides; this couplet names none. The shared images support a devotional context without supplying the poem with an unstated intermediary. Sharbat is a drink of refreshment here, with no necessary implication of wine. Its arrival remains located in the repeated “one day,” extending the speaker’s hope to fellow seekers.

هَر کِه سَرْگَشْتِهٔ چَوْگانِ غَمَت گَشْت چُو گُوی

har ke sargashte-ye chowgān-e gham-at gasht cho gūy

6a  Whoever became a ball driven astray by sorrow’s polo stick for you

سَر چُو چَوْگان نَهَد اَنْدَر سَرِ کُویَت رُوزی

sar cho chowgān nahad andar sar-e kūy-at rūzī

6b  will one day lay his head, bent like that stick, at the entrance to your lane.

Commentary on couplet 6

The lover first resembles a ball driven about by sorrow’s polo stick, then imagines laying a head bent like that stick at the beloved’s lane. The comparison changes within the couplet: uncontrolled motion gives way to a posture of attendance. Sar recurs through sargashte, bewildered or wandering, the head itself, and the head or entrance of the lane, gathering movement toward a place of rest. ʿAttar likewise brings together a head laid in the beloved’s lane and lovers’ heads as polo balls, though his stick is the beloved’s tresses. [3] The parallel preserves this poem’s distinct turn from ball to bowed head. Sorrow has driven the seeker, but the anticipated arrival takes the form of lowering himself at the threshold.

سُوخْت بَر دَرْگَهِ تُو جانِ عَلایی عُمْری

sūkht bar dargah-e to jān-e ʿAlāʾī ʿomrī

7a  For a lifetime ʿAlāʾī’s soul has burned at your threshold,

بِاُمِیدی کِه شَوَد زِنْدِه بِبُویَت رُوزی

be-omīdī ke shavad zende be-būy-at rūzī

7b  hoping one day your fragrance will bring it to life.

Commentary on couplet 7

The closing names ʿAlāʾī’s soul as having burned for a lifetime at the beloved’s threshold, sustained by the hope of life through fragrance. The burning is asserted within the poem; the revival is still awaited. Be-omīdī makes explicit the hope that has supported each earlier “one day.” Hamadani distinguishes bodily existence from the heart’s spiritual life, associating that life with knowledge of God, love, and faith. [2] This supplies a devotional sense of renewed life alongside the emotional force of revival through a beloved’s scent. The poem leaves the character of that revival open. Fragrance returns from the suffering heart of couplet 3, now carrying the promise of life for the soul. The signature gathers the wider company of seekers back into one enduring, vulnerable petition.

Understanding this ghazal

“One day” holds this ghazal together. Each return of rūzī opens the present toward a future in which separation might be answered, while leaving the day itself unspecified. The speaker addresses an unnamed beloved through face, hair, lane, stream, and threshold. These details preserve the intimacy of human affection and allow a devotional reading through the vocabulary of union, seeking, and renewed life. Hope has already darkened, the heart is suffering now, and the soul has burned for a lifetime. Restoration, by contrast, is repeatedly spoken into the future. The poem’s confidence is the voice of expectation within that unequal distribution of experience.

Light, fragrance, and water make the anticipated renewal tangible. The face offers a dawn; the lane becomes a horizon; a rose’s scent might reach the wounded heart; a stream promises relief to thirsty seekers. Each image gives the desired relationship a different mode of approach. Darkness is gathered into the beloved’s hair, and distance may be crossed by fragrance before the face is seen. These possibilities need not form a fixed sequence of spiritual stages. They are ways of imagining how the one whose absence hurts could also become the source of restoration.

The royal canopy briefly enlarges that restoration into public distinction, but its rise depends upon a mere sign of affection. The thirsty company then broadens the individual longing, and the polo image turns bewildered motion toward a bowed arrival. Hamadani’s prose supplies a close parallel for the desert and waters, while elsewhere distinguishing hopeful preparation from divine gifts beyond personal control. [2] These contexts help hold effort and reception together. The poem neither erases the seeker’s longing and attendance nor gives them control over the beloved’s response. Its images of glory remain answerable to dependence.

At the close, ʿAlāʾī’s soul is still at the threshold. A lifetime of burning has not become a report of completed union, yet the repeated future has also kept suffering from having the final word. The awaited fragrance is slight in comparison with the duration of pain, and immense in what it could accomplish. The closing hope clarifies the opening dawn: the lover speaks as someone who continues to expect life from the beloved before possessing the renewal he names.

Sources and textual notes

1. ʿAli-Akbar Dehkhoda, Lughat-nāma, entry “chatr”, available through Vajehyab. Consulted for the ceremonial canopy’s role as an emblem of sovereignty alongside the banner, throne, and crown.
2. Hamadani, Dhakhīrat al-mulūk, consulted in Mohammad Umar Farooq, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani’s Dhakiratul Muluk: An Annotation and Translation (PhD thesis, University of Kashmir, 2009), printed p. 336, on the heart’s spiritual life; printed p. 393, on thirsty seekers, separation’s desert, and waters of union through spiritual guides; and printed p. 414, on preparation and divine gifts. The English translation was checked; the Persian wording was not independently collated.
3. ʿAttar, ghazal 122, couplets 3 and 5 in Ganjoor’s numbering. The Persian text places the lover’s head in the beloved’s lane and compares the beloved’s tresses to a polo stick, with lovers’ heads as balls. Cited as shared imagery, without a claim of direct borrowing.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991, printed p. 476 reference and the signature ʿAlāʾī are retained unchanged. That edition and the attribution of this ghazal have not been independently verified. The commentary distinguishes the supplied translation’s interpretive completion in couplet 1b from the compressed Persian wording, and the poem’s hoped-for renewal from an account of completed attainment.

Chehel Asrar 36 - Thirty Sixth Ghazal

Ghazal 36

9 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 475–476

نِقابِ عِزّ اَگَر یِکْدَم زِ رُویِ خُود بَراَنْدازی

neqāb-e ʿezz agar yekdam ze rū-ye khod barandāzī

1a  If for one moment you cast the veil of majesty from your face,

هِزاران بِیدِل اَز هَر سو دَر آیَد دَر سَر اَنْدازی

hezārān bīdel az har sū dar āyad dar sar-andāzī

1b  thousands of heartsick lovers on every side will rush to give their heads.

Commentary on couplet 1

The speaker addresses a beloved whose face is guarded by majesty and imagines the rush of lovers that one moment of unveiling would provoke. Bīdel, literally without a heart, describes those already dispossessed by attraction; offering their heads would carry that loss of self-command further. The veil belongs to ʿezz, glory or might, so beauty’s concealment expresses its inaccessibility. Removing the veil need not mean relinquishing the majesty associated with it. The tiny interval and the multitude of responses establish the poem’s recurring disproportion between a slight gesture and an overwhelming effect. Human beauty and devotional disclosure remain possible registers of the address, while the offered heads give surrender the extravagant urgency of love poetry.

زِ یِک پِیچِ سَرِ زُلْفَت دُو عالَم گَشْتِه عَنْبَربُوی

ze yek pīch-e sar-e zolf-at do ʿālam gashte ʿanbar-būy

2a  One twist at the end of your tresses has scented both worlds with ambergris;

اَگَر آن پِیچ بُگْشایی سَمَن بَر عَنْبَر اَنْدازی

agar ān pīch bogshāyī saman bar ʿanbar andāzī

2b  if you undo that twist, you will spread jasmine over ambergris.

Commentary on couplet 2

One twist of the beloved’s tresses has already perfumed both worlds; undoing it promises a further mingling of jasmine and ambergris. The first half asserts an effect within the poem, while the second leaves the new gesture conditional. The immense reach of a single curl gives beauty influence beyond what the eye immediately sees. Jasmine spread over ambergris layers fragrances, and may also suggest the brightness of an exposed face against darker hair. That visual association remains an interpretation of the sensuous image. The curl is therefore more than a simple obstruction: even while coiled, it communicates beauty through scent. Its release could change how that beauty appears without making the earlier fragrance worthless.

زِ شُورِ جِلْوِهٔ حُسْنَت غُبارِ غَیْر شُد ظاهِر

ze shūr-e jelve-ye hosn-at ghobār-e ghayr shod zāher

3a  The tumult of your beauty’s unveiling raised the dust of otherness;

گَر اَز غَیْرَت کُنی غَمْزی غُبار اَز رَه بَراَنْدازی

gar az ghayrat konī ghamzī ghobār az rah barandāzī

3b  if in jealous ardor you cast one glance, you will sweep that dust from the road.

Commentary on couplet 3

Beauty’s display has raised the very dust that a further glance is asked to clear. The first unveiling therefore produces disturbance and apparent separation; it does not immediately abolish otherness. The dust can evoke a throng stirred by beauty, recalling the lovers gathering in couplet 1, while also suggesting distinctions that obscure their source. Ghayrat gives the beloved an exclusive claim that will tolerate no rival; ghamza keeps that claim embodied in an intimate glance.

Hamadani’s prose pictures divine radiance effacing the devotee’s shadows within an account of prayer and need. [3] This parallels the clearing movement, without explaining why the dust first arose. A spiritual reading can concern the loss of attention to the beloved through the very commotion that beauty awakens.

غُبارِ غَیْر و کُفْر و دِین طِلِسْمِ گَنْجِ مَعْنی شُد

ghobār-e ghayr o kofr o dīn telesm-e ganj-e maʿnī shod

4a  The dust of otherness, unbelief, and faith became the spell guarding meaning’s treasure;

طِلِسْمِ گَنْج کَی مانَد چُو زُلْف اَز رُخ بَراَنْدازی

telesm-e ganj kay mānad cho zolf az rokh barandāzī

4b  how can that spell remain when you sweep the tresses from your face?

Commentary on couplet 4

The dust now becomes a talisman guarding meaning’s treasure, and unbelief and faith are included in its obstruction. A talisman protects access to something precious; the poem imagines its power collapsing when the beloved sweeps the hair from the face. Kofr and dīn place opposed religious positions on the same side of the barrier. Attachment to such identities is one possible interpretation, but the verse itself makes the broader claim and should retain its unsettling force. The rhetorical question expects the spell to fail before unveiled beauty. That poetic access to meaning does not explain the status of religious obligations. The tresses participate in concealment here, although the preceding fragrance showed that concealment can also communicate beauty.

صَدَایِ مَوْکِبِ عِزَّم نَگُنْجَد دَر هَمِه عالَم

sadā-ye mowkeb-e ʿezz-am nagonjad dar hame ʿālam

5a  The sound of my glorious procession would fill more than the whole world, [1]

گَرَم یِک رَه بِدُشْنامی عِنایَت بَر سَر اَنْدازی

gar-am yek rah be-doshnāmī ʿenāyat bar sar andāzī

5b  if just once you bestowed your favor on me with an insult.

Commentary on couplet 5

The speaker imagines a procession whose splendor cannot be contained by the world, provided the beloved grants even an insult. The supplied reading ʿezz-am, “my glory,” links this imagined distinction with the beloved’s majesty in the opening; the alternative noted in the source remains an editorial uncertainty. Favor arrives in a form that would ordinarily diminish honor. Saʿdi offers a close literary parallel when his lover welcomes the beloved’s coming even with insults. [4] Here the value lies in being addressed, and that recognition would make the speaker’s glory resound everywhere. The reversal expresses this lover’s hunger for attention, rather than a general approval of humiliating conduct. His procession remains conditional upon a word he cannot command.

زِ ذُلِّ ظُلْمَتِ صُورَت شَوَم دَر مَسْنَدِ مَعْنی

ze zoll-e zolmat-e sūrat shavam dar masnad-e maʿnī

6a  From the abasement of form’s darkness I would rise to meaning’s throne,

گَر اَز راهِ کَرَم یِکْدَم خُورَم دَر خاوَر اَنْدازی

gar az rāh-e karam yekdam khor-am dar khāvar andāzī

6b  if for one moment your kindness set my sun in the east. [2]

Commentary on couplet 6

The speaker would move from the abasement of darkened form to a throne of meaning if kindness brought about his sunrise. The supplied khor-am, “my sun,” is explicitly provisional; under that reading, darkness, the east, and elevation form a coherent pattern. Sūrat and maʿnī contrast outward form with inward significance, giving the transformation both a visual and a spiritual dimension. Hamadani’s prose likewise links grace with illuminated perception and the lighting of the heart’s garden. [3] This offers a parallel for awakening through received light, without making the poem’s sun a literal cosmological body. The throne belongs to meaning, and its dignity depends upon generosity from the beloved. The verse imagines changed perception and standing without specifying bodily destruction.

جَهان زِنْدانِ مَن گَرْدَد گَرَت یِکْدَم نَه بِینَد دِل

jahān zendān-e man gardad gar-at yekdam na bīnad del

7a  The world becomes my prison if my heart fails to see you for one moment;

نَعِیمِ جان شَوَد دُوزَخ گَرَش غَم دَر بَراَنْدازی

naʿīm-e jān shavad dūzakh gar-ash gham dar bar andāzī

7b  hell becomes the soul’s bliss if you cast your sorrow into its embrace.

Commentary on couplet 7

The world becomes a prison when the heart cannot see the beloved, while hell could become bliss through sorrow associated with him. The paired conditions make relationship determine the lover’s experience of a place. Seeing belongs explicitly to the heart, allowing inward awareness to resonate with the loss of a human beloved’s presence. Saʿdi similarly rejects paradise without the beloved’s face and imagines remembrance making hell’s torment painless. [5] This ghazal makes the sharper choice of sorrow as the bearer of intimacy. “Your sorrow” can mean the pain of loving the addressee; it does not require the beloved personally to suffer. The paradox voices an experience of attachment without establishing a universal account of hell’s eventual condition.

کِرامِ عالَمِ عُلْوی لِوایِ رِفْعَتَم گِیرَنْد

kerām-e ʿālam-e ʿolvī levā-ye refʿat-am gīrand

8a  The noble beings of the higher world will raise the banner of my eminence,

اَگَر یِک نُقْطِه اَز نامَم رَقَم بَر دَفْتَر اَنْدازی

agar yek noqte az nām-am raqam bar daftar andāzī

8b  if you inscribe a single dot of my name in your register.

Commentary on couplet 8

The noble beings above would raise the speaker’s banner if the beloved entered even a dot of his name in a register. The least written acknowledgment thus carries an immense public consequence. No particular celestial order is named: the phrase suggests exalted witnesses to an honor whose source lies elsewhere. The register likewise remains the beloved’s, without being identified as a specific scriptural book. The dot measures how little recognition the speaker asks for; it need not encode a doctrine of letters. As with the insult and the sunrise, the decisive action belongs to the addressee. Even this banner of eminence is imagined under an “if,” keeping distinction dependent upon being remembered and recorded by another.

عَلی با دَرْدِ دِل عُمْری مُقِیمِ خاکِ اِین دَر شُد

ʿAlī bā dard-e del ʿomrī moqīm-e khāk-e īn dar shod

9a  ʿAlī has spent a lifetime with an aching heart in the dust of this doorway,

مَگَر اَز دارُویِ لُطْفَت دَوایی دَر خُور اَنْدازی

magar az dārū-ye lotf-at davāyī dar khor andāzī

9b  hoping you will bestow a fitting remedy from the medicine of your kindness.

Commentary on couplet 9

The closing names ʿAlī and brings the imagined processions and banners back to a lifetime in the dust of a doorway. His aching attendance is asserted within the poem; the remedy remains a hope. Magar carries the expectancy preserved in the supplied translation, while dar khor asks for medicine fitting the wound. Dārū and davā bring remedy into close verbal association, answering dard, the pain that has endured. Hamadani distinguishes inward preparation from divine gifts that remain beyond the seeker’s control. [3] This provides a devotional parallel for waiting without guaranteed receipt. The lifetime at the door gives the petition weight, but cannot compel its answer. After the imagined elevations, the final need is simply for kindness that can heal.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal addresses a beloved whose slightest gesture could transform the lover’s condition. Its recurrent andāzī and barandāzī give that power physical movement: casting, bestowing, clearing, and setting down. A veil may fall, tresses may loosen, dust may disappear, or a name may enter a register. The addressee remains unnamed, with bodily beauty and sovereign authority sustaining both human and devotional readings. Yet the poem is not wholly hypothetical. The worlds have already become fragrant, dust has appeared, a talisman has formed, and the named lover has spent a lifetime at the door. Against these assertions, further acts of favor remain desired.

The opening images give concealment an unusually active role. Coiled hair sends fragrance through both worlds, while beauty’s display raises the dust of otherness. A fresh gesture is then needed to clear what the earlier display has stirred. These tensions resist a scheme in which every covering is simply bad and every appearance immediately liberates. Faith and unbelief become part of the talisman, pressing the question of what obstructs access to meaning. Hamadani’s account of radiance effacing shadows remains situated within prayer and creaturely need. Its context offers a parallel for illumination while preserving a difference from the poem’s sweeping treatment of religious opposites. [3]

The later images turn from the beloved’s beauty toward the lover’s possible dignity. A procession, a throne, and a celestial banner seem to magnify the self, yet each elevation depends upon attention received. An insult would suffice, or one moment of kindness, or a single dot. The reversals of ordinary value become most forceful when sorrow makes hell desirable and absence makes the world a prison. These are the lover’s measures of intimacy and loss. Their devotional possibilities should retain the emotional intensity of the address rather than becoming instructions to seek humiliation or a systematic account of the afterlife.

The signature ʿAlī finally places the speaker below all this imagined grandeur, at a dusty threshold. This dust differs from the earlier dust of otherness: an image of obstruction gives way to a setting for fidelity, where he remains with an aching heart. The ending does not report the medicine’s arrival. Its unresolved petition allows the poem’s great claims for beauty to coexist with the seeker’s continued vulnerability. The smallest acknowledgment could confer immeasurable honor, but only the beloved’s kindness can supply the remedy being awaited.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes

[1] 5a: عزم is read as ʿezz-am, “my glory,” rather than ʿazm, “resolve.”

[2] 6b: خورم is provisionally read as “my sun,” fitting the darkness and east imagery.

Editorial references

3. Hamadani, Dhakhīrat al-mulūk, consulted in Mohammad Umar Farooq, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani’s Dhakiratul Muluk: An Annotation and Translation (PhD thesis, University of Kashmir, 2009), printed pp. 94–95, on divine light and the devotee’s shadows in prayer; printed p. 413, on grace and the illuminated heart; and printed p. 414, on inward preparation and gifts beyond the seeker’s control. The English translation was checked; the Persian wording was not independently collated.
4. Saʿdi, ghazal 279, couplet 2 in Ganjoor’s numbering. The Persian reading text welcomes the beloved’s coming even with insults. This is a literary parallel, without a claim of direct borrowing.
5. Saʿdi, ghazal 517, couplets 6–7 in Ganjoor’s numbering. Paradise without the beloved’s face is unwanted, and remembrance changes the experience of torment. The comparison preserves the difference between Saʿdi’s remembrance and this ghazal’s sorrow.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991, printed p. 475–476 reference, the signature ʿAlī, and both reading notes are retained unchanged. That edition and the attribution of this ghazal have not been independently verified. The commentary distinguishes the supplied reading from the documented prose parallels and other contexts cited here.